In that short time, I have made leaps and bounds in my journey to wellness. I feel more positive and experienced than I did when I wrote the first piece about this important component of living with chronic illness.

For me, recovery has become the control of the symptoms that cause me issues. It is feeling well, mentally and physically, on a consistent basis.

It is hope, self-esteem, and making my own contribution to the world.

While there are many components to recovery (see Stephen Propst’s article), there are a few that I wanted to highlight as being important in my life since being diagnosed five years ago.

These are the five most important themes of my bipolar recovery journey so far:

How and What I Think

Buddha said, “All that we are arises with our thoughts.”

In short, how we feel about ourselves and the world around us is shaped by our thought patterns.

The mind is powerful, and if you think irrationally or negatively, you impact how you think about yourself, how you take care of yourself, and how you view your recovery.

For me, cognitive behavioral therapy helps with harmful thinking.

When I started examining and changing my thoughts in therapy, many parts of my life in turn changed for the better.